


Closing Time

by karrenia_rune



Category: Gargoyles (TV)
Genre: Community: fanfic100, Drinking, Friendship, Gen, Inspired by Music, Minor Canonical Character(s), Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 16:39:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2199186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vinnie has become a regular at a bar where he's made friends with the bartender, Delilah and who helps him get over his ambivalence<br/>over his work situation and his anger towards the Manhattan clan of gargoyles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closing Time

Disclaimer: Gargoyles is the property of Disney and Buena Vista Television. It is not mine.  
Note: the title comes from the Semisonic song by the same name.

 

Vinnie Grigori had had and lost more job assignments as a security officer than he can count but it’s never because of his job performance, or because he’s been caught in negligence, no, for some reason it’s almost always because he’s ended up the one holding the bag when everything hits the fan. It’d funny if weren’t so damn ironic.

He’d been in the bar long enough to almost be recognized on site by the bartender, an attractive red-had named Delilah, with a ring in one ear and a matching one on her lower full pouty magenta-colored lips. That he found her attractive, that she found the kind of reedy, washed up kind of guy that she felt an inexplicable need to take care of was not lost between them.

Both had come to the understanding that it wouldn’t go any further, but still she’s a good egg and she lets him bend her ear whenever he’s in and she’s not overly busy.

He’s also witnessed some pretty weird stuff, he’d even once thought he was losing his marbles and thought he’d seen the old man and CEO of Cyberbiotics get his floating fortress hijacked by a pair of saboteurs with bat-like wings. 

He wasn’t entirely clear on the details at the time because of the swirling chaos and the noise and the fact that his vision had been hampered by the escaping miasma of released hydraulic fluid in his eyes. He’d escape the destruction of Fortress-1 but now he was out of a job.

It was a good thing that it was for much longer because it was getting to the point where he could almost not afford to pay rent. 

He’d told his story about the small yellow-green gargoyle swooping down from the sky and startling him so badly that he’d lost control of his motorcycle to the local circuit judge who’d assumed he’d been intoxicated and had dismissed his case out of hand.

Vinnie took another sip of the tumbler of whiskey and then another.

The crowd shuffled off and the tune to the Semisonic song ‘Closing Time’ began to play through his mind, smooth and slow and kind of melancholy like an accompaniment to his meandering thoughts.

Delilah came over and took a seat opposite him. “A penny for your thoughts?”

“Is that the going rate these days?”

She shrugged. “It’s an expression, but I seriously doubt it’s subject to inflation.”

Vinnie scoffed. “Yeah, thanks for that. I needed a good laugh right about now.

“For what it’s worth, I believe that you’re not crazy. That you’re a good man whose just run into a streak of bad luck.”  
He swirled his green swizzle stick in between his two middle fingers and then stuck back in his now empty glass of whiskey where it came to rest in the chunks of half-melted ice cubes. “Hey, Delilah, I need to ask ya a pretty serious question and I need ya to be honest with me.”

She nodded, saying, “I can do that.”

“Do you think that what I saw the first time, then later on at Cyberbiotics and Genu-tech, and the fact that I went on live television and told everyone were real, were real?”

Delilah nodded. “Yes, Yes, I do. I believe me I’ve been around long enough to know the difference, but I also think that whether or not their urban legends, I think the gargoyles mean us no harm.”

Vinnie swallowed, shook his head and almost knocked his glass onto the floor when he stood up too quickly feeling an impulse to flee, and then paused when he halted his movement and looked at her and the earnest, empathic look in her green eyes. 

“I didn’t say that to make you uncomfortable or to negate your feelings, but it’s true. I don’t know why, so don’t bother asking me to explain it, but it’s just that, can tell that it’s true.”

Vinnie sat back down and put his hands over his face. “Did I tell you that I once had a friend of mine make me a cutting-edge gun I named Mr. Carter and had it filled with pie and went after the gargoyles leader?”

“Pie?”

Resisting the urge to laugh outright at the image thus invoked, she swallowed and asked. “And how well did that work out for you?”

Vinnie began to chuckle, and soon without his realizing they were both laughing uproariously. When it was offer Vinnie felt a hell of a lot better than he had in a very long time. “Thank you.”

“Ain’t no big thing, Vinnie, my man. That’s what friends are for. And to prove it, Let me walk you home, but first help me close up, will you?” she said.

**Author's Note:**

> Also written for the fanfic100 prompt #60 drink


End file.
